Software designers should rule

The world is now so complex that it doesn’t seem safe to let lawyers and politicians run everything. Take voting. People are rushing to install voting machines. The trouble is that they don’t have an audit trail. How could you construct an election so that everyone could see that their vote was counted, and could ensure that many types of election fraud could be detected? And could you do that without using encryption? Ronald L. Rivest, a (famous) professor at MIT has a system that does this, and it is pretty clever. Maybe software designers should run things for a while.

Mastodon @ Slims 25 September 2006

I was glad I went to this show, but I'm glad it was at a small venue like Slims (official capacity 470). It was packed for an appearance by up and coming metal band Mastodon. Every time I have been to Slims the floor is sticky and they still don’t seem to have cleaned it. Mastodon is a four piece with twin guitarists. They played very enthusiastically. Their singer looks like he should play a dwarf when Peter Jackson eventually films The Hobbit. I kept being distracted by the merchandise stall: if I was going to wear a band tee-shirt I would choose one like this.

I was near the front and I ended up being on the edge of the mosh pit. It was full of BIG guys who hastened to pick up anyone who fell over. I’ve tried hard to like this band but when I think of modern metal bands I keep comparing them with Opeth who have such a beautiful guitar sound. Mastodon keep things simple: no acoustic guitars here (good), but somehow I wish they had more dynamics. This piece about how modern recording are too compressed mentions Mastodon as offenders. But even live they don't vary things all that much.

Use the Windows Vista tone

Microsoft has a list of Top Rules for the Windows Vista User Experience. The best one is this:

Use the Windows Vista "tone" to inspire confidence by communicating to users on a personal level by being accurate, encouraging, insightful, objective, and user focused. Don't use a distracting, condescending (for example, "Just do this..."), or arrogant tone.

I'm not sure I'm ready for my computer to communicate with me on a personal level.

Talent Spotting

I wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up. Grace wants to be a teacher. Teaching is an honourable profession. It's low paid so it won't be outsourced to India too soon.

What's it like to be a teacher and have a talented pupil? What would it be like to have Lily Allen in your class? Or to be Dizzee Rascal's music teacher?

Banlieue 13 (District B13)

I liked this lightweight, fun, action movie. There is this guy, David Belle who invented this French 'sport' of jumping around buildings with your shirt off.. In the film he is one of the good guys. There is lots of fighting and jumping around buildings while shirtless. Not since the A-Team have so many machine guns been fired at our heroes with so little effect. It lasts only 85 minutes (this is a good thing). It reminded me a bit of Ong-Bak, (which I also liked), another movie based around the talents of a particular guy. It is possible that action films are better in foreign languages

Quality Value Service

Starting over with Cat Power

I was moved by this interview with Cat Power in the NYT. She seems very honest about her problems. I walked out of one of her concerts a few years ago, it wasn't a train wreck, it was just boring. I've had no time for her since then, but maybe now we can try again.

The sad tale of the Bhundu boys

The Grauniad has this sad tale of the Bhundu boys. I was at the Madonna stadium gig where they supported her and it was pretty weird. I think I'd seen them already that year, and they weren't a stadium band. Sadly they reflect Zimbabwe's demographics (it has a very high HIV infection rate), and three band members have died from Aids-related diseases. It's all doubly sad because at their height they made such a joyous sound.

How dangerous is terrorism?

Wired analyses the statistics of death rates.

S E V E R E Driving off the road: 254,419 Falling: 146,542 Accidental poisoning: 140,327

H I G H Dying from work: 59,730 Walking down the street: 52,000. Accidentally drowning: 38,302

E L E V A T E D Killed by the flu: 19,415 Dying from a hernia: 16,742

G U A R D E D Accidental firing of a gun: 8,536 Electrocution: 5,171

L O W Being shot by law enforcement: 3,949 Terrorism: 3147 Carbon monoxide in products: 1,554